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The Fantasy Premier League wildcard is a gift and a curse.
On the one hand, it’s one of the four ‘chips’ that is supposed to make your life easier. In reality, working out when you’re supposed to use your wildcard, who to transfer in, and so on, is one of the biggest headaches in FPL.
Let’s not worry about all that right now, though!
You’re here to get the Fantasy Premier League wildcard rules explained, and that’s exactly what I’m about to deliver.
Read on to discover how wildcards work, how to activate your wildcard, when to use your wildcard, and get plenty of other golden nuggets of information.
I’ll assume you already know the basics of how Fantasy Premier League works. If not, check out our FPL Explained section here, with information on how FPL points are calculated, how FPL price changes work, and more.
If you can’t be bothered with all that… suit yourself!
All you really need to know for this article is that you need 15 players in your FPL team, and that your team needs to fit within a budget (which starts at £100.0).
By default, you get one free transfer per FPL gameweek. You can bank this four times, for a maximum of five free transfers. Any other moves you make will cost you -4pts… Unless you activate your Fantasy Premier League wildcard, that is!
In short, your Fantasy Premier League wildcard team can involve 15 new players, if you like. After activating it, you can make unlimited free transfers for that gameweek. Unlike with a free hit (more on that later), you keep those players going forward too.
So, you’ve got an overview of how the Fantasy Premier League wildcard works. Now though, it’s time to delve into the nitty-gritty.
FPL is full of rules, and – guess what – the wildcard has a bunch of its own. Here are the most important Fantasy Premier League wildcard rules to keep in mind:
I can’t stress enough how important it is to check and understand these FPL wildcard rules… preferably before you try and play your wildcard.
Even after years of playing FPL casually, I was still making mistakes here (obviously this would never happen now that I’m a big-time pro).
A classic error, which I may or may not have made myself, is bringing in a player before he rises in price, but without being sure you’ll use your wildcard.
Fine, I did do this, then subsequently used my wildcard, not realising my previous transfer would be cancelled, and that I’d lose out on the price change anyway, when I could’ve just played my wildcard to start with. Just one example of the scrapes you can get into from not understanding the FPL wildcard rules properly there, folks – be careful out there.
By now, you should have a pretty good idea of how the Fantasy Premier League wildcard works, and what it is. If you don’t, either I’m not doing my job properly, or you’re not reading my wonderful explanation closely enough.
Either way, it’s high time to actually learn how to play your wildcard in Fantasy Premier League. Fortunately, it’s incredibly easy, with these being the few simple steps you must take:
As noted, this is all extremely straightforward. Remember, however, that – once your wildcard has been activated – there’s no way to cancel it. Doing so is a big step, therefore, and you must be mentally and logistically prepared before taking the plunge*.
*Alternative Option: Debate whether or not you want to play your wildcard all week, get drunk on a Friday night, open up the app, drawl to your mate who probably doesn’t care – ‘I’m going for it!’ – and play your wildcard then and there**.
**We do not recommend this option… but hey, it happens.
I mentioned the four ‘chips’ in the introduction to this article, if you remember. You don’t? You’re really not paying attention at all!
Two of them – triple captain and bench boost – aren’t relevant at all for this article. You can get FPL tips on when to play them here, though. That leaves us with two chips that are related, but work differently – wildcards, and free hits.
Both of these chips give you unlimited transfers. Both are even activated from the same screen – namely, when you’ve made a couple of transfers and are prompted to actually confirm them.
The difference – in Fantasy Premier League wildcard vs free hit – is their longevity.
The changes you make on a wildcard will last indefinitely. You could keep that team the rest of the season, if you wanted. The changes you make on a free hit last for one week only. You can change your whole team, but – at the end of that gameweek – your team will reset to whatever sorry state it was in before.
In turn, this affects how you should approach your targets for wildcards and free hits.
With a free hit, you’re literally building a team for one week only, and should therefore target good fixtures for that single gameweek.
With a wildcard, you should look further forward, as we’ll see in the next section.
We’ve stuck mostly to the nitty-gritty of how to activate your wildcard in Fantasy Premier League so far, and what happens when you do.
This leaves a lot of other questions, though – When should you play it? Who should you get in? If somebody plays a wildcard alone in a forest, and there’s nobody there to see it, did it get played at all?
Unfortunately, the answer to most of these questions (except the last one) is… it depends.
It depends on how you’re doing to that point in the season, and whether you’re maintaining a lead or chasing one.
It can also depend on how many injured players you’ve got. You can solve a couple of injuries via regular transfers, and just take a hit if the situation calls for it. If 1/3 of your team is out, and you were considering a wildcard anyway, that’s probably the time to use it.
Rather than completely bailing out with the ‘it depends’ answer, though, here are some actual Fantasy Premier League wildcard tips.
We touched on this in the previous section, but it bears repeating. Free hits are short-term. With wildcards, you should definitely be looking to the medium-term at the very least.
Don’t just look at the next gameweek or two. Take each player you’re considering, and look at their next 5-10 games. If Player X has the potential for returns, but is facing a series of the toughest defences in the league, you’ll likely be better off with a slightly ‘worse’ player who has much better fixtures.
A couple of other notes.
Firstly, don’t bring in players who you’re already planning to transfer out after a week or two. If you get injuries to deal with in that time, you’ll be stuck with the first player.
Secondly, check that the players you’re bringing in aren’t close to being suspended. It can also be worth checking any injury news about them, which isn’t always flagged by the Fantasy Premier League game itself.
Do your research, and – as noted above – plan ahead. If you tick both those boxes, you should have confidence in your FPL wildcard working out for the best.
Do not panic if your new Fantasy Premier League wildcard team gets off to a slow start. Remember that you’ve planned for the next few gameweeks, not just one or two. Trust in your own judgement, and stay the course.
On this note, one of the most popular Fantasy Premier League wildcard tips (which I agree with), is that you should almost never make a transfer the week after you wildcard. Again, trust the team you’ve picked, and roll that transfer over so that you can make a double-change the following week, if needs be.
The FPL wildcard represents a massive opportunity.
I wouldn’t say using the wildcard at the wrong time, or getting the wrong players in, can ruin your season. I would, however, say that the opposite is true. Nail your wildcard, and you can set yourself up for several strong weeks, at least. This can help you close a gap on your FPL rivals, or open one up, to a season-changing extent.
As such, the third and final of my Fantasy Premier League wildcard tips is not to use this valuable chip lightly.
Be patient in waiting for the right opportunity (see below), and – even if you’re normally a more relaxed manager – put the time and effort into researching who you want for your Fantasy Premier League wildcard team.
Obviously, every FPL season is different. I can’t give you a no-doubt, slam-dunk, season-winning, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am Fantasy Premier League wildcard strategy that will definitely lead you to glory. Sorry!
What I can do, however, is tell you my personal wildcard strategy. Specifically, this revolves around when to use your Fantasy Premier League wildcard.
In general, I’m a massive believer in patience in FPL.
This is easier said than done, especially if you’ve got FPL Twitter or Reddit over-reacting to everything that ever happens (more on that here). It’s tough even without that – everyone has a tendency to panic, when a player they’ve backed in FPL blanks a couple of weeks in a row.
Regardless, you have to try your best to ignore the noise, and wait for the best opportunity to do what you actually want to do. This definitely applies to when to play your FPL wildcard too.
Every season, a previously-overlooked player or two (at least) will race out of the gates. Everyone will overreact. Likewise, highly-owned players will struggle, and everyone will overreact to this too. This often leads to loads of people panicking that they’ve completely screwed up their team (already), and dropping an early wildcard.
Do not do this!
Whoever was in your starting FPL team, you chose them for a reason. Don’t bail on them all after a few shaky weeks. If you’re being left behind in ownership and price by an early-season favourite, you can certainly bring them in on a transfer. It isn’t usually worth it to use your wildcard early in the season, however.
Depending on the exact dates, you’ll usually have at least 18 weeks before the first Fantasy Premier League wildcard reset.
You don’t have to wait for the last minute (although I often do use mine shortly before the reset). You do have to wait at least a few weeks, though, until you feel that you actually need to use your wildcard. That could be because of injuries, because you’re falling behind in your FPL league, or you’re missing out on too many must-own players.
Compared with the first wildcard, I’m happier to use my second a little earlier after the Fantasy Premier League wildcard reset, which happens around the halfway point of the season.
As with the wildcard, you should be patient in using your other second half FPL chips – your free hit, triple captain, and bench boost. The best times to play these are generally later in the season, because various cup fixtures and postponements usually lead to double gameweeks.
You can only play one chip per gameweek. For at least three of the final 19 (or so) gameweeks, therefore, you’ll be using three other chips. You’ll be aiming for big scores in those individual gameweeks, targeting specific, short-term fixtures.
You must therefore build around those targeted gameweeks with your wildcard, and ensure you’re still putting up points in the other weeks. Often, this means playing your wildcard with (very roughly) 10-15 gameweeks remaining. That leaves enough time to still get the benefit from it, but not so much time that planning ahead is impossibly hard.
Obviously, this is easier said than done, since it requires a fair amount of fixture analysis.
My Full90 FPL co-conspirator James is much better at all that than I am. If you can’t be bothered to work it all out for yourself, therefore, just follow us on Reddit and check his preview columns around that time.
After reading this handy guide, you should now be a certified expert in the FPL wildcard… or, y’know, at least have a general idea of how the Fantasy Premier League wildcard works.
You’ve had the FPL wildcard rules explained, gotten a step-by-step guide on how to use it, and even gotten some top Fantasy Premier League wildcard tips too. What more could you want?!
Of course, what you might want is advice on your Fantasy Premier League wildcard strategy for the current season. In this case, give us a follow on Reddit or Twitter – @Full90FPL – to get all our latest advice, or check out our latest FPL tips here.
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